Alien Lisa's Nightmare AKA The CopOut
by Lisa Moulton
Summary: Lisa is haunted by a terrible nightmare and Data must reassure her that it is just a dream.


**THIS STORY IS MARY SUE! IF YOU DON'T LIKE IT, DON'T READ IT!**

**Disclaimer: I don't own anyone on _Star Trek_. If I did, I wouldn't be writing this, now, would I? _Trek_ in all its glory belongs to the late, great Gene Roddenberry. All I own is the DVD and the novel of this evil, evil movie (any movie that makes me cry is evil and I burst into tears at any mention of "the scene". You'll see) and ****AL****. By the by, I took a few liberties, like having Data's emotion chip active at the jump and stuff. The novel (or, at least, my fiancée because I haven't seen the page) says that the chip was fried because of the Borg, but I don't believe it. That is all. All flames may be written then deleted to the Recycle Bin. Even writing this made me cry. Anyways, this is my cop-out way of bringing Data back to life after he dies in _Nemesis_: make it a dream. shrug**

_"Now, Mr. La Forge."_

_"Aye, sir." Geordi nervously worked the transporter controls for the site-to-site transport._

_Lisa watched as Captain Picard shimmered as the transporter effect overtook him, then he disappeared._

_No sooner had he dematerialized that the transporter panel sputtered and exploded, sparks raining down on top of Geordi._

_"That's it," he said. "Transporters are down."_

_The silence that followed was deafening, for Geordi had just announced the captain's fate: most likely doomed to die aboard the _Scimitar_. Lisa bent her head and Data put an arm around her, squeezing gently. She leaned against him, taking comfort in his closeness._

_If she had had any idea what he was thinking then, she probably would not have allowed him to do what he was going to do next. If his android brain wasn't too complex for the link to connect them together properly, she might have had an inkling as to what he was about to do._

_Data and Geordi looked out what used to be the view screen – now only a gaping hole with only a force field to protect them from the vacuum of space._

_"The system is fused," reported a crewman, but no one was listening._

_"Counselor Troi," Data said politely, but with authority, "please assume command. Geordi, come with me."_

_The android headed for the turbolift, Geordi followed and Lisa hurried to catch up, lost as to what he was up to._

_Data led them to one of the damaged decks where the vastness of space loomed, thinly veiled by a flickering force field. On the way, they had picked up a tricorder and he had explained what he wanted to accomplish._

_He was going to jump – through space – from the _Enterprise_ to the _Scimitar_. Lisa, of course, thought he was completely insane._

_"Data, you can't!" she protested, trying to hold back tears. "You'll never make it!"_

_He readied himself for his jump. "What is our exact distance?" he asked Geordi, who did a quick scan with the tricorder._

_"Four hundred thirty-seven meters." This idea of Data's was wild, that was for sure. So wild that it just might work, and Geordi would try anything to save the captain and the ship. Data had made it sound logical._

_"Thank you," replied Data, then backed up a little._

_"Data, please_…_" Lisa said, her voice suddenly small, her brown eyes brimming with tears._

_The android paused and looked at her, his first and only true love. Had it not been for the emotion chip, he would never have known. They would have never fallen in love._

_In truth, Data didn't want to do this, but it was the only way to save Captain Picard, even at the cost of his own life. Lisa had figured it out easily. She knew she was going to lose him. Forever. They would never be together again._

_Data cupped her cheek in his hand and pulled her close, kissing her gently on the lips. When the embrace broke, his face was shining with her tears, and Lisa's were stained with Data's own._

_He leaned close to her ear. "I love you, Lisa," he whispered. "You are forever in my memory."_

_Lisa tried hard not to, but a sob escaped her throat. "Data, please don't go_…_" she said, tears breaking her voice, her wings turning deep, deep blue._

_If Data had a proper human heart, he would feel it breaking twice over. Once for himself, and once through the link for Lisa. It took all his will not to turn of f the chip, his grief nearly overwhelming him._

_He embraced her tightly and looked to Geordi. "Take care of her, please," he said softly._

_Geordi just nodded, then came over and took Lisa by the shoulders, drawing her away from the one she loved. She clung desperately until he wrapped her arms around himself, holding her as she let herself cry quietly._

_"Thank you, Geordi," Data said simply. He didn't mean just for taking Lisa. He meant for everything: his friendship, compassion_…_everything._

_He took his hands from Lisa's shaking shoulders and activated a force field between them with the tricorder. He wanted anything to remove it, take Data's arm and persuade him not to go._

_"Data, wait_…_!" Lisa began, rushing toward the field that separated them._

_But it was already too late. Data had begun to run. With preternatural speed, he ran down the long corridor, and when he was but an arm's length from the opening and the field, Geordi pressed a different control on the tricorder. The field snapped off; the vacuum of space rushed in. The violent decompression gave Data momentum as he dove into the rift._

_They stayed, watching, Lisa's entire body trembling, wracked with quiet sobs. A strange emptiness was in Geordi, as if his own field had failed and his lungs and been sucked empty by the void. He could only imagine the grief Lisa was experiencing. If her blue-tinted wings were any indication, she was utterly depressed._

_Data floated toward the _Scimitar_, carried by momentum – carried, Geordi realized, too far. As he sailed past the warbird, the android thrust out a hand to catch hold of the ship – and failed, just missing a piece of dangling wreckage._

_Lisa went rigid, paralyzed with fear, until she saw him slam into something completely invisible: the cloaked aft of the _Scimitar_, they realized, and Geordi grinned broadly. Lisa, however, had neither the energy nor the will to smile. They watched as the android pulled himself onto the invisible hull, ripped open a pane, then climbed slowly inside, disappearing from their view._

_It took a few moments for Geordi to finally coax her into leave the deck. When she finally relented, her steps were slow and sluggish, and she was shaking so much Geordi was afraid she would collapse. He finally took her hand and by the shoulders, gently leading her towards the bridge._

_No one bothered her nor lodged a complaint when she planted herself right into Data's chair and buried her face in her hands. A few wondered what had happened, and most realized that whatever it was, it involved Data, for only something of that nature could have her in such a state._

_Time passed by agonizingly, until finally they heard the telltale sounds of a transporter. Hopeful, Lisa looked up, only to see Captain Picard standing in front behind the captain's chair, the only person to realize he had arrived._

_Her telepathic abilities picked up lingering traces of what had happened aboard the _Scimitar_ and Lisa's eyes widened in horror as she looked followed Picard's gaze through the hole in his bridge. Fresh tears flooded her eyes and they all saw the brilliant flash as the _Scimitar_ dissolved into whirling bits of shrapnel._

_"**NO!**" Lisa screamed, leaping to her feet as if she could do something to stop the explosion._

_Nobody looked away, permitting themselves to be blinded._

_And when the blindness faded, and many of the minute scraps of metal that had been the _Scimitar_ had flown away, they continued to stare out through the force field and saw nothing but a faintly glowing field of debris against the darkness of space, illuminated erratically by the energy bursts of the Bassen Rift._

_Deanna and Geordi stood together, his arms around her shoulders. Briefly, they thought that the captain had met his fate aboard the ship, but then they turned saw him standing there behind them._

_They then took note of Lisa, who was gripping Data's chair so hard her knuckles were white. Her head was bowed and she was shaking violently._

_"Data?" Deanna asked the captain softly._

_Lisa looked up and to him, tears streaming down her cheeks, awaiting Picard's answer._

_The captain shook his head and they all turned again to stare out the hole in the bulkhead._

_Consumed by grief, Lisa collapsed into a sobbing heap onto the deck floor. Geordi and Deanna went to her, trying to console her, but all she could do was cry and whisper over and over_…

_"Data_…_Data_…_Data_…_"_

"Data! Data!" Lisa cried in her sleep, tossing and turning fitfully. "_Data!_" She ended up waking herself and, in a rush of panic, tried to flee the room. Her legs ended up getting tangled in her covers and she fell to the floor, where she curled up into a tight ball and wept, her eyes tightly shut.

So oblivious was she now to the outside world that she didn't realize when someone picked her up and carried her to the bed, gently cradling her and rocking her.

"Lisa?" said a concerned, soft voice. "Lisa, what is wrong?"

Normally, the sound of that voice would have brought her out of anything, but the images of the dream were so fresh in her mind that she didn't register the voice at all.

"Lisa?" it called again and a hand gently ran itself through her sleep-tousled hair.

Shaking violently and sobbing miserably, she finally managed to gasp out, "Data…Data's…_dead!_" and cried harder, a heart-wrenching sound.

A pause, then that soft voice spoke again. "No, Lisa, I am not dead."

At last, she registered the gentlest of touches on her tear-stained cheek. Gasping for breath, opening her eyes, she tried to see through her tears.

When the image of who was holding her came into as much focus as her eyes could manage, what with the tears filling them and her glasses off, she started to cry tears of joy.

"Data!" she cried, wrapping her arms around the android. Utter relief flooded through her and she clung to him desperately, as if she thought he'd vanish. "You're alive!"

Confused, Data just held her, rocking her in his arms and stroking her hair. She had thought he was dead? Noting her sleepwear and the fact he'd found her on the floor, he deduced that she must have had a nightmare.

"It is all right, Lisa," he said to her, soothingly. "I am here."

"It was _awful_," she said in a quavering voice.

"What happened?" he wanted to know.

She shook her head vehemently and started to cry again, not wanting to relive it. There was no chance she'd ever forget, the images having been all but burned into her brain. The _Scimitar_…Data and Geordi on the damaged deck…Data telling her that he loved her…Geordi activating the force fields…Data running…jumping…the ship…

Lisa wept even harder. It hurt _so much_ to think about it, even with him there holding her tightly. Her hearts ached with a pain she had never experienced before. There was a lingering fear in her mind that what was holding her was merely an illusion conjured up by the grief inside her.

All Data could do was sit there and hold her until she calmed down. Dreaming of his death had rattled her terribly. Indeed, it made Data uncomfortable, as well. Though there had been no set limit on how long he would function, there was the possibility that, someday, he, too, would cease to exist. It was something that haunted him since that incident on the Amargosa Observatory after he had gotten the emotion chip. He _didn't_ want to die and leave Lisa alone.

It took a while for Lisa to stop crying, and even then she was gasping, sweating, and clinging to him for dear life.

"Can you tell me what happened in your nightmare?" Data asked slowly. He didn't want to make her upset again, but perhaps, he felt, that talking about it would make her realize it was just a dream.

Tears threatened to overwhelm her again, but she struggled to keep her voice in control as, slowly at first but with increasing speed, she retold the events of what happened.

"Then," she concluded, "I heard Captain Picard materialize behind me. You must've given him that little portable transporter thing…" She took a deep breath, trying to steady her shaking voice. "And then…" She sniffed, the tears emerging. "Then…then the ship…" She made an exploding gesture with her hands and began to cry again, reaching the end of the limit on her willpower.

Data just held her as she wept. He didn't know what to say to her. There was nothing he _could_ say to make her feel better. Even his very presence didn't seem to comfort her.

He hoped that she would, eventually, put the dream behind her.

And he would be at her side to help her.

_The end._


End file.
